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Sunday July 30, 2000 "My gut burns
at both ends; Al, with apologies to Edna St. Vincent Millay
The sleek black thing replaces...
the stuff on the floor. I'm still struggling to find a tense and a voice for the journal. So if there are jarring shifts between present tense, past tense and mad ramblings...um...I intended to do that! |
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The Next Morning When you eat rich food and drink your share of wine, the next morning can be slightly rough. I took three Advil, an Aloe Gel cap and went back to bed when I saw it was raining. I got an early start on it, all things considered. Even after the initial failure to actually get up, I got up around 8. Rescued the papers from the rain. Fired up the Capresso to deliver a few cups of its magic. Read a little and watched some tube. Then I rousted myself to wash the china and the glassware and dry everything and put it away and generally clean up. By 12:30, the kitchen was good as new, I was showered, and the rest of the day loomed as a gift. I could play with with my toys, I could clean up my office. I spent a good part of the day fooling around with digital pictures I took of Big Night, installing software, playing with my Ink Jet (stop, put in a new B&W cartridge), stuff like that. I've got so many gadgets, wires, and books in here that it is mind-boggling. Just when I get one thing under control, I drag something else home from a store or out of a closet. It's hopeless, really, I know it. Still, I buy new pieces of furniture and new organization tools of various kinds in hopes of winning. And I dream about installing the next gadget. Today I exchanged three pieces of equipment for one. That's got to be a start to getting organized, huh? Of course, the box, manuals, extra little this and that for the new portable caller-id two-line phone are scattered on the floor and the old single line phone, line switcher and caller-id box are also on the floor. See...this is what happens. For now...it's messier than ever! And yes..when the shoe rings, I answer. Although it's always a wrong number. That whimsical phone makes it possible to use the ISDN line as a phone in a pinch. The white phone is a modem line although we use the modem only in extreme cases of DSL failure now. This phone makes it possible for someone to talk on the phone without fear of interrupting FFP doing business. I give this number when businesses want a home phone. If it rings and I'm in another room, I don't answer. Same for the shoe. Salesmen or wrong numbers. When those automated things dial every number selling say, health insurance or vinyl siding, each phone in the house will ring in its turn. If you ask me how many phone lines we have, I have to stop and count. I didn't leave the house all day. FFP went to Central Market for sushi and out again in the evening to get a pizza. And I think he went out to get some gas. I didn't leave the place. And I felt busy, busy, busy. But what did I do? Other than handwashing about fifty plates and thirty glasses? I discovered an interesting channel on the digital cable. Game. Old game shows, sometimes running in a box with some kind of trivia quiz, unrelated to the show, going on around it. Old "What's My Line" and such. "Password." If you are of a certain age, you'll remember these. If you're not, you could discover them all again. Really takes you back. I also watched "The Stepford Wives" or most of it. And FFP brought back the strangest movie, "The Designated Mourner," with the pizza. It was all talk, sometimes interesting talk. FFP got a strange pizza, too. One we always get if we don't have to share with less adventurous eaters. It always has at least pineapple, anchovies and pepperoni. Today, it also had fresh-squeezed garlic, onions and sliced tomatoes. We both like it. Basis for a good marriage: liking the same weird pizza. FFP slept through most of "The Designated Mourner" and I faded in and out, too, until I got up and got a soda. I also read some of the paper. Two articles in the arts section touched on ebay auctions. An art critic set out to buy art there. A guy writing a musical about the 1939 World's Fair shopped there for souvenirs and wrote about it in his article. Admit it. Ebay reflects our culture. It's a sociological machine and an archeological dig. That's why you see bits of ebay here from time to time. That's why, if you get a thank-you note from me, it might have little pieces of paper decorating it with pictures copped from ebay. Sort of like clipping magazines but infinitely vaster and more surprising. But "Designated Mourner"...hmmm, it's a couple and her father talking and they live in some violent, dictatorial country. Written by Wallace Shawn who was in "My Dinner with Andre" and had writing credits in that, too. Did you know he was William Shawn's son? [If you don't know who William Shawn is then you are not a The New Yorker aficionado.] I didn't even come close to cleaning the room. It's awful in here. Forrest wants to use the color printer and some stuff and I'm horrified at the mess and that he can't easily use the stuff because of it. Must straighten up in here. Really. Now. Critical mass has been reached. Implosion possible.
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